Elor Azariya
Elor AzariyaFlash 90

The National Insurance Institute demanded that Elor Azariya pay a debt of more than NIS 5,000 - NIS 510 for every month since his discharge from the IDF. Azariya was controversially sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of manslaughter in January for killing a wounded terrorist in Hevron in March 2016.

Channel 20 reported the Azariya family had tried for several days to explain to National Insurance officials that their son had been in prison for almost two years, both in open confinement at a closed base and in Prison 4, and is expected to be released only in May.

The National Insurance Institute apparently hadn't heard about the case which had dominated the headlines in Israel for months.

"I'm talking to the National Insurance Institute and asking, 'Don't you know who Elor Azariya is?' - They told me 'No, we don't know,'" said the father, Charlie Azariya. "They don't stop exhausting us and torturing us," Azariya says. "What do they want from us?"

The law says that the State is obliged to pay National Insurance payments for a prisoner who has served a sentence of more than a year. Prisoners serving sentences shorter than a year pay the sum themselves. In this case, Azariya has indeed not served a term in a prison for more than a year, but he was held in closed detention since the first days of the affair.

Following Channel 20's inquiry, the National Insurance Institute explained that confirmation of Azariya's discharge was received on August 8, and since it is a computerized system, a "debt" was created. Following the inquiry, NII officials said they would erase the debt.